“Every man gets a narrower and narrower field of knowledge in which he must be an expert in order to compete with other people.

The specialist knows more and more about less and less and finally knows everything about nothing.”

=

Konrad Lorenz

——————

“I do not think I’m easy to define.

I have a wandering mind.

And I’m not anything that you think I am. ”

=

Syd Barrett

—————

Well. Someone asked me what I do.

I answered I am mostly a pain in the ass to current business consultants, leaders and people of my generation <50somethings who I believe, in general, have their proverbial heads up their asses>. I write, and speak, about the changing face of the business landscape and what that means for businesses.

My view of things suggest consequences:

– Young people in business disengage from what could be learned

– Young people in business manage on instinct <disregarding what older generations have done> … which is fraught with peril

– Young people in business make unnecessary mistakes

– Young people in business are now tending to guide themselves into a generalist role/view of business rather than a specialist <and older people thrive on hiring specialists, but value ongoing performance based on generalist qualities>.

I am only going to speak to the last point today.

I cannot remember where, but I saw someone write about being a generalist. Okay, what they actually said was none of us should be just one “thing” and we all possess a variety of skills – including skills we aren’t using.

This is one of my favorite topics to rant about. Being a specialist versus a generalist.

It drives me a little nuts that people naturally associate “being accomplished” with specialist.

It drives me a little nuts that people naturally associate “unfocused” with generalist.

Suffice it to say people’s perception when you suggest you are generalist is rarely <see: ‘never’> good. People seem to wonder if you just were not smart enough to specialize <which presumes ‘talented and skilled’> in something.

People seem to immediately assume you have some attention deficit disorder <why else could you not focus on one thing> or a general lack of ability to stay the course on one thing.

Maybe worst of all, people assume being a specialist means you do have a skill and being a generalist means you do not have a skill. That last thought is most bothersome because a good generalist actually offers the highest value skill – the ability to create structural value creation.

Regardless. I admit I have a love/hate relationship with specializing.

I love the fact someone can find something they are interested in, are good at and acquire a skill which permits them to offer a service which others can not.

I hate the fact someone can often blindly sacrifice learning and ‘enlightening the mind’ under the guise of this thing called specializing.

Far too often I find specialists have sacrificed so much outside of their specialty they know more about nothing <things outside their skill> than is actually good for them. While I admit I am biased I believe if you’re multi-skilled or curious over a variety of topics & skill development you tend to be more adaptable and more ‘evolving’ as a human being — and this person ultimately adds value anywhere and to anyone <ability to offer transactional value AND structural value creation>.

I believe I have stated this before. The world actually needs a mix of generalists & specialists and that alone means maybe we should not only give generalists a break <for not being a specialist> and maybe we should be encouraging generalist attitudes & behavior.

Anyway.

Suffice it to say successful people do not always do one thing. As a corollary doing a variety of things is not an exclusive characteristic of unsuccessful people.

My personal belief is that a generalist is too good to specialize.

And I wish more people were generalists.

I believe everyone is capable of a variety of skills and I believe most people have skills they aren’t using.

Me?

I specialize in being a generalist. And my specialty in discussions with people is to ask “what else?”

Huh?

<1> What do you do?

<2> What else?

Maybe that is my simplest thought with regard to specialists versus generalists, I just wish more people would pursue ‘what else’ in life.

Maybe view “what’s next” with curiosity and energy more often.

Maybe be a little more perpetually dissatisfied with what they know.

In the end. I imagine I don’t really dislike specialists or like generalists I simply abhor stagnancy and, in general, I view specialization as naturally arcing toward stagnancy and generalization arcs toward progress. That, in the end, is my best argument for generalization versus specialization.

So. This is about things you do in life and the remembrance of things past and the fact that in today’s society you cannot permit things you may, or may not have done, become lost and gone.

Oh. And I imagine this has to do with business and building a resume and ‘marketing yourself’ <a term I abhor almost as much as ‘personal branding’>. I begin this discussion with a quasi-Life truth warning about how things you do, in the end, can blow away in the wind<if you are not careful>:

———-

“I spend my time building castles in the air but in the end all of them, and I, blow away in the wind.”

Don Juan of Austria

——-

Now. To be clear. This is not about notdoing things, or not having the drive or passion or persistence to go and do, this is more about having actually done <things> and whether it matters if you tell anyone you actually did them or not.

Anyway. I just used a quote from Don Juan of Austria to make a point. He was a young man in the late 1500’s described as having an unquenchable appetite for glory and certainly a man of action. He was the leader, and victor, of the Christian coalition against the Ottomans in the battle of Lepanto at the age of 22 in 1571.

Yup. 22 years old. Oops. Only to die not too many years later of typhoid somewhere in the Netherlands <while seeking further glory & action>.

Well. We do not all have an ‘unqeuenchable appetite for glory’ <I know I do not>, but I do tend to believe that we all would like to have developed a nice list of ‘things I have done’ throughout our lives.

Glorious? Maybe. I think ‘meaningful’ would be a better word and thought. But here is one of the challenges Life throws you. It doesn’t really matter what you want or desire because society wants and demands something else. The whole world of ‘understatement’ and ‘being humble’ and ‘letting my actions speak for me’ seems to have disappeared.

I know … I know … that sounds cynical … but look around.

Self-help books scream “if you don’t tell anyone what you have done how will anyone <in this fragmented short attention span world> ever know what you have done … don’t fear telling people your accomplishments!!!!”<yes … they always include exclamation points>. Or … “you need to be your own best advocate … and don’t be afraid to tell people so.”

In addition, you cannot escape it in the business world because business management demands you to point out your accomplishments in interviews and annual reviews <at the same time demanding you never use “I” because that implies you aren’t a team player>.

Let’s be honest. Today’s world makes it difficult to be humble or quiet with regard to … well … anything, but especially your actions and accomplishments. Simplistically this happens because businesses want to pay people off of results, i.e., ‘responses’ not stimulus. Uh oh. That means you may be a catalyst, but you will get paid less than someone who ties themselves to results.

Accountability in business life … possibly in Life in general … for leaders.

Defining accountability in interviews and in business <from a personal perspective>.

– Accountability in our lives <us common everyday folk>

Personally I do not believe the majority of us have to show ‘accountability’ for our lives. I believe this mostly because most of us are just trying to do our frickin’ best without having to be accountable for all of our actions at the end of it all. Sure. We would maybe like to have a list of ‘things that I have done’ that reflects … well … a job well done. A measure of the overall effort we put in over time and at critical times <I tend to believe it is really really rare we would ever look back and say ‘wow … that was perfectly the best and I couldn’t have done better!” – note the shouting for affect>.

I tend to believe most of us will be pretty content saying we did the best we could.

Ah. But its a ‘res gestae’ world. What have you accomplished? Where is the list of things you have done? Suffice it to say, this sucks.

– Accountability in business life … possibly in Life in general … for leaders.

Now … leaders? Well. Yeah. They are accountable.

They accepted responsibility. They should be accountable and dammit … silly or not … I want them to step up to the plate as examples for the next generation of leaders and say “yeah … this is what I did … and didn’t do.”

As I type that … I will visit what actually got me thinking on res gestae … Roman Emperor Augustus. He was most famous for listing his deeds <Res Gestae Divi Augusti …. – Latin: “The Deeds of the Divine Augustus” – is the funerary inscription of the first Roman emperor, Augustus, giving a first-person record of his life and accomplishments>.

——-

By its very nature the Res Gestae is less objective history and more propaganda for the principate that Augustus instituted. It tends to gloss over the events between the assassination of Augustus’ adoptive father Julius Caesar and the victory at Actium when his foothold on power was finally undisputed. Augustus’ enemies are never mentioned by name. Caesar’s murderers Brutus and Cassius are not referred to by name, they are simply “those who killed my father.” The Battle of Philippi is mentioned only passim and not by name. Mark Antony and Sextus Pompeius, Augustus’ opponents in the East, remain equally anonymous; the former is “he with whom I fought the war,” while the latter is merely a “pirate.”

———

Some examples of deeds <or accomplishments> he listed:

16) I paid cash to the towns for the lands that I assigned to soldiers in my fourth consulship, and later in the consulship of Marcus Crassus and Gnaeus Lentulus

17) Four times I assisted the treasury with my own money, so

20) I restored the Capitol and the theatre of Pompey, both works at great expense without inscribing my own name on either. 2 I restored the channels of the aqueducts, which in several places were falling into disrepair through age, and

25) I made the sea peaceful and freed it of pirates. In that war I captured about 30,000 slaves who had escaped from their masters …

Well. While I worry that this can quite easily turn into self-propaganda I do see the value in leaders having ‘deeds.’ Do they write them themselves? Yikes. I don’t know. I would prefer some unbiased people providing the list, but I do like the fact that as a leader they are accountable. In addition, maybe this is where I am different from other people, I am okay if they sucked as a leader. I do not believe we demand this list to crucify them <or worship them>, but rather simply to learn. The fact that their ‘deeds’ were underwhelming or they under delivered on what was set out upon in the beginning is not the point. Huh? For a variety of reasons good, or great, Leaders do not succeed and just as often some people overreach and attain leader positions and are not really leader types. But if we do not demand that leaders list their accomplishments how can the next generation better assess whether they should lead or follow?

Augustus may have been a toga wearing blowhard, but he sure had an impressive list of accomplishments. I ahve no clue whether he was a good leader or not, but I do like the fact we have something to view as a ‘res gestae.’

–Defining accountability in interviews and in business <from a personal perspective>.

“Facts which, though not in issue, are so connected with a fact in issue as to form part of the same transaction, are relevant, whether they occurred at the same time and place of at different times and places.”

Hmmmmmmmmmmmmmm … facts which may be proved, as part of res gestae, must be facts other than those in issue but must be connected with it. Though hearsay evidence is not admissible, but when it is res gestae it can be admissible in a court of law and may be reliable evidence.

Anyway. This is whole res gestae and interviewing <or business in general> is an interesting topic & situation for me. And before I wrote this section I had to go for a run and ponder what I would say.

Here is a truth.

I am naïve about this whole res gestae and interviewing and business thing. Yup. I have been in the working world for over 25 years and not counting the gobs of interviews I had to do to get my first job I have had 8 interviews in my entire career and had 6 offers from those 8. And I have had 9 jobs <yes I got 2 jobs without interviews because they were old bosses reaching out and hiring me>.

I don’t interview. Well. I just haven’t, jobs have appeared.

That said. In an interview I imagine if you are investing in res gestae you only have to provide ‘reliable evidence’ as to things you have done — including some hearsay. In other words you can make shit up or create some very very tenuous links with regard to what you have done. But, in today’s interviewing world, you are increasingly being demanded to step up and list your accomplishments. Hearsay, tenuous or direct … whoa … provide no list … and no job offered. That is the equation in today’s business interviewing world.

Me? I won’t do that. Well. I certainly would struggle to do that <hence my hesitance to go out and interview>. Combine that challenge with the fact that, well, I know everything … and nothing. Let me explain. As a generalist I know a little about everything and not a lot about anything in particular. I imagine I am more of a catalyst type than I am an ‘accomplisher’ <at least in my eyes>.

So. I have a double whammy challenge in today’s world – I am a generalist <when the business world is endeared with specialists> and I don’t really accomplish anything <but organizations accomplish things around me>.

Bottom line?This whole topic is a tricky one for me personally in Life and in interviewing.

I don’t get, nor like, the whole concept of even listing ‘things I have done’ even in a resume.

I imagine I should be quite thankful that I have avoided having to go through the interview process a lot. I suck at listing ‘what I have done.’ The few times I have interviewed I suggest ‘situations in which I have been involved have tended to end in positive places.”

Inevitably I get the follow up question(s) … what did you specifically do? How did you contribute to that success? … in other words … res gestae … you are demanded to give ‘the list of things I have done’.

I don’t.

I won’t.

Ok. Res gestae and this whole personal interviewing thing. I am relatively sure I have done some meaningful things, but most likely not any more meaningful than a bunch of other people.

So how do I resolve this in my head? Geez. Shit. I will suck in interviews <because I won’t ‘res gestae’ like many others … or invest any time and energy in remembrance of things past> and I simply will hope that others will recognize that I provide value in some form or fashion. I will not play this game. It is quite possible that I am being foolish. But I also tend to believe in the long term … which permits me to remind everyone of the quote I opened with … “I spend my time building castles in the air but in the end all of them, and I, blow away in the wind.”

If people demand that I list all the castles I have built <in the short term> which will all inevitably blow away in the wind <over time> … I just cannot. How big is an accomplishment if it simply blows away in the wind one day? And I certainly doubt I am good enough to have built any castle that the wind cannot blow away some day.

Ok. So <the conclusion to this rambling observation>.

I can hope when all is said and done, just as Shakespeare did in his plays, in the end maybe I will simply ask for a “pardon “as his actors did if you don’t enjoy the show called my Life:

If we shadows have offended,

Think but this, and all is mended,

That you have but slumber’d here

While these visions did appear

And this weak and idle theme,

No more yielding but a dream,

Gentles do not reprehend.

If you pardon, we will mend.

If you believe that Life is a stage and we play our part <as I do in most cases> than I will take a bow and hope everyone will recognize I played my part as well as I could. That is all I hope that people remember about what I have done. In business, interviews and most importantly life.

Yup … after taking a bow … I will <as Shakespeare did> offer a good night unto you all. Give me your hands if we be friends … But. Please don’t ever ask me for a list of things I have done.

“Blaming others is an act of refusing to take responsibility. When a person can’t accept the fact or the reality, they blamed another person or the situation instead of taking accountability.”

―

Dee Dee Artner

=================

“For every King is right in his own eyes and rests the blame to whoever he wishes to carry it.”

―

Auliq Ice

===================

Delegating. While I could argue delegating is one of the most difficult things you learn to do as you move up in an organization <and one you MUST learn or will inevitably fail>, accepting responsibility, blame or accolades, is a whole different discussion and an entirely different learning challenge.

I know.

I know.

That sounds odd even as I type that. You would think no one actually has to learn to accept responsibility for their, well, responsibility. But all you have to do is look around the hallways of any management floor and some leaders in the public eye and you will see a shitload of people who seem to have actually mastered the skill of placing blame on whoever they wish <other than themselves>.

Regardless. I would say that the difference between delegating and accepting responsibility can be captured in two key words — learn versus accept.

You have to learn how to delegate.

You have to accept responsibility.

Here is a truth. No one, and I mean no one, has to learn how to accept responsibility. You either accept it or you do not.

And to explain the ‘accept’ part let me remind everyone of “double joys and halve the griefs.”What I mean is that you learn to double down when accepting responsibility for ‘blame’ or failure and you only accept half the responsibility, at most, on the successes and accolades. In other words good leaders halve the griefs <if not accept all> to those you delegate to and double the accolades for those you delegate to.

That is the basic “good formula.”

But some people want zero the grief and 100% the joy. These are the quasi- leaders who authorize people to do things not out of good delegation but rather to distance themselves from any decision that may create a less-than-positive outcome.

Shit. No. Double shit.

There may be nothing more heinous in leadership management acumen than the delegation of responsibility with the intent to absolve one from potential negative outcomes. All potential repercussions get sifted first and foremost through the hands of the one who has now been authorized.

In other words that crappy leader handed someone some rope to potentially hang themselves with.

Setting my bitching & disdain aside, I have to ask why some run away from this responsibility.

Well. I will admit that making mistakes was a shitload easier years ago when I was a young whippersnapper attempting to move up in the business world. Bosses were fairly forgiving of mistakes and you learned that accepting responsibility for the bad as well as the good not only didn’t harm you but actually helped you grow as a person.

In today’s business world, shit, in the world itself, forgiveness isn’t that normal. Mistakes become opportunities to fire someone, demote someone or, in general, torture them. While in the good old days your mistakes became hallway whispers and break room gossip, today your mistakes become facebook posts, email chains and twitter memes. What this teaches people is assuming responsibility for a mistake has disproportionate consequences and doesn’t really help you grow as a person.

The way up, or to survive, seems to be somewhat dependent upon disproportionately shirking responsibility for the errors and disproportionately accepting responsibility for the successes.

It’s kind of the worst of both aspects.

In a past post I mentioned …‘accountability in today’s business world is stuck in the sludge at the bottom of the business moral barrel.’

I believe accountability for decision making in business is either nonexistent or far too random to be considered standard operating procedure.

To be clear <part 1>.

This is not about someone holding you accountable. This is about you holding yourself accountable especially when no one is holding you accountable.

To be clear <part 2>.

Today’s business world is strewn with cowards.

I know that sounds harsh, but not only do people fear being accountable in general they are absolutely scared shitless to be accountable for indirect consequences, i.e., being accountable for anything beyond the obvious cause & effect.

It is cowardly behavior.

And it gets worse in my eyes when I google search ‘integrating accountability in business’ and I find almost everyone discusses in some form or fashion the need to ‘clarify what it means to be accountable.’

WTF.

This is crazy to me.

Accountability for decision making, to me, equates to a some sense of fearlessness bred within an organization <some people call this “psychological safety”>. Fearless in terms of making mistakes <and not being overly chastised for doing so> and fearless in terms of a ‘doing what is right’ mentality.

All that said. Organization culture or not, people don’t need someone to define accountability or honoring commitments or any of that crap, people just need to assume responsibility & accountability as part of who they are and how they act. Holding yourself accountable is nothing more than following through with YOUR commitments and responsibilities whether you have authorized someone or delegated or any other excuse some of these cowardly leaders use to distance themselves from any real consequences.

Look.

We are responsible for our actions – all of them.

We are responsible for our inaction – all of them.

We are responsible for the repercussions of our actions & inactions – even the unintended results.

We are responsible for our thoughts and the behavior attached to them.

We are responsible for our mistakes.

And, yes, we are responsible for the actions & inactions of the people we have authorized shit to or delegated to.

Interestingly, an author Linda Galindo argues that the only true accountability is “personal accountability” and the only way to achieve it is to take responsibility for the outcomes of your choices, behaviors and actions– to the level of 85% of everything you touch or are associated with.

I could debate the 85%, but as far as the intent I couldn’t agree more. This seems like a hard thought for many in business to not only grasp, but accept.

Why? I could provide an excuse by suggesting in a world where it seems like collaboration is the standard operating procedure and tasks are delegated in a fragmented fashion <often under the guise of ‘specialists should work only on their specialty’> the actual outcome has been impacted by so many hands it is difficult to tie it to one hand, let alone the leader decision maker, directly.

This means many business people want to avoid assuming responsibility for others actions, or maybe better said, they don’t want to be accountable for something they didn’t have 100% ownership of.

This is really silly thinking.

No.

This is cowardly thinking.

Here is the good news.

People who have personal accountability are happier, more respected and more successful professionally.

People who have consistent accountability actually increase the likelihood that they WILL get some credit for indirect positive consequences.

So if you can fight your way thru the doubts in being accountable in certain situations and fight your way thru systems which seem to crucify you for mistakes and accept the responsibility, you will end up in a better place – as a person and professionally.

Best? You also get the satisfaction of laughing at all the cowardly assholes you see mumbling excuses, shifting responsibility and ultimately doing whatever they can to avoid any blame for the mistake/missed deadline/project gone wrong. The ones who are quick to point the finger at anyone and anywhere but themselves.

Yeah. I will admit. Some of those ‘blameless assholes’ are really slick when it comes to accountability and personal responsibility.

They vocalize responsibility … with caveats.

They accept positive accountability for anything that has any appearance of clear cause & effect wrapping it all up with anything that doesn’t have clear cause & effect and deflect negative accountability results with a flick of an “I authorized them to do it.”

They seek to have 0% griefs and 100% joy.

They are fucking cowards.

==

“We must reject the idea that every time a law’s broken, society is guilty rather than the lawbreaker. It is time to restore the American precept that each individual is accountable for his actions.”

Ronald Reagan

==

In the end.

This is about personal responsibility and personal choice. If you do not dare to do what is right then … well … it is cowardly behavior.

==

“Manliness consists not in bluff, bravado or loneliness. It consists in daring to do the right thing and facing consequences whether it is in matters social, political or other.

It consists in deeds not words.”

Mahatma Gandhi

==

I honestly don’t care about cowardly behavior, daring behavior or heroic behavior. Doing what is right and accepting responsibility & accountability should be required behavior of our leaders and shouldn’t be celebrated, it should just be expected.

Me? I believe no one should have to hold me accountable for my actions & responsibilities. No one but me should set whatever standard I set for myself.

Look.

All jobs carry the burden of some responsibility. I don’t care if you are the most junior maintenance person or the most senior person in the world. And if you have some responsibility you will also have the burden of accepting responsibility for what you do, what you may have asked someone to do and even some shit that wasn’t done <but would have been within your purview if it had been done>.

I just wrote about personal accountability and in that post I mentioned … ‘accountability in today’s business world is stuck in the sludge at the bottom of the business moral barrel.’

I believe accountability in business is either nonexistent or far too random to be considered standard operating procedure.

To be clear <part 1>.

Despite this being about working and the business world this is not about someone holding you accountable. This is about you holding yourself accountable especially when no one is holding you accountable <even though there is always someone holding you accountable in business>.

To be clear <part 2>.

Today’s business world is strewn with cowards. I know that sounds harsh but not only do people fear being accountable in general … they are absolutely scared shitless to be accountable for indirect consequences … being accountable for anything beyond the obvious cause & effect. It is cowardly behavior. It is the ‘refuge of scoundrels.’

Speaking of scoundrels.

Yes. I know there are good responsible people willing to assume responsibility & be accountable throughout business. They just seem harder & harder to find. And it becomes even harder because the scoundrels use two main tactics to throw you off:

– passive aggressive accountability.

Maybe we call this false humility. Under the guise of humility they appear to be accepting accountability in the beginning only to aggressively take a stance of pride or indignant with regard to ‘uncovering the errors or mistakes to resolve the issue for the future.’ This is the “I assume responsibility … BUT’behavior.

This is simply out and out fucking passive aggressive behavior simply playing the game to avoid the stickiness of accountability.

– selective accountability.

Whew. These scoundrels really know how to play the game and play people.

Suffice it to say, not all accountability is created equal. These scoundrels seem to have a sixth sense on when to assume accountability and when to side step and let someone else take the blame. They have a knack for invariably selecting the situations which gain them ‘they are accountability type people’ status and selecting the situations to avoid which would taint them with some ‘they seem to make a lot of mistakes.’

While businesses claim they embrace ‘mistakes with good intentions’ they aren’t really. The reality is they abhor and are relentlessly critical of those who dare to make mistakes – well intended mistakes or lazy mistakes. These selective type scoundrels are incredibly good at easing the mistake label over to someone else.

And beyond recognizing the scoundrel tactics … it gets worse in my eyes when I google search ‘integrating accountability in business.’ Almost everyone discusses, in some form or fashion, the need to ‘clarify what it means to be accountable.’

WTF. This is crazy to me.

Clarify what it is? Please.

Accountability, to me, equates to a fearlessness bred within an organization — fearless in terms of making mistakes <and not being overly chastised for doing so> and fearless in terms of a ‘doing what is right’ mentality. This is organizational culture stuff <and some call this a version of ‘psychological safety’>.

If the organization doesn’t encourage accountable behavior than all it does is encourage employees to figure out a way of avoiding accountability.

All that said. Organization culture or not, people don’t need someone to define accountability or honoring commitments or any of that crap. People just need to assume accountability as part of who they are and how they act.

Why do I believe this? To me this conversation is like thinking that someone needs to teach people what integrity is.

You cannot teach. You either know, or understand, what integrity is or you don’t.

Holding yourself accountable is nothing more than following through with your own commitments and responsibilities. It’s doing what you know you should do when you should do it.

Look. Simplistic cause and effect explanations are for cowards. Business is rarely simple cause & effect and organizations are much more complex than simple cause & effect.

If you want a linear life … well … you are screwed.

We are responsible for our actions – all of them.

We are responsible for our inaction – all of them.

We are responsible for the repercussions of our actions & inactions – even the unintended results.

We are responsible for our thoughts and the behavior attached to them.

We are responsible for our mistakes.

Interestingly, an author, Linda Galindo, argues that the only true accountability is “personal accountability” and the only way to achieve it is to take responsibility for the outcomes of your choices, behaviors and actions – to the level of 85% of everything you touch or are associated with. I could debate the 85%, but as far as the intent – accountability beyond direct cause & effect activity – I couldn’t agree more.

This is a hard thought for many in business to not only grasp … but accept.

Why? In a world where it seems like collaboration is the standard operating procedure and tasks are delegated in a fragmented fashion <often under the guise of ‘specialists should work only on their specialty’> the actual outcome has been impacted by so many hands it is difficult to tie a result to one hand directly.

This means many business people want to avoid assuming responsibility for others actions or, maybe better said, they don’t want to be accountable for something they didn’t have 100% ownership of.

This is really silly thinking.

Uhm. But here is the really really hard part about accountability in business.

While you can’t hide behind simple cause and effect with regard to being accountable <you are also accountable for indirect consequences>, conversely, you cannot take credit for indirect successes.

I know … I know … you want to.

But that’s not how it works.

You are accountable for indirect negative consequences and not credited for indirect positive consequences.

Someone can give you the credit, but you cannot claim the credit.

Here is the good news.

People who have personal accountability are happier, more respected and more successful professionally. People who have consistent person accountability actually increase the likelihood that they WILL get some credit for indirect positive consequences. So if you can fight your way thru the doubts in being accountable in certain situations and fight your way thru systems which seem to relentlessly crucify you for mistakes you will end up in a better place – as a person and professionally. And you also get the satisfaction of laughing at all the assholes you see mumbling excuses, shifting responsibility, slyly pointing fingers and ultimately doing whatever they can to avoid any blame for the mistake/missed deadline/project gone wrong.

The ones who are quick to point the finger at anyone and anywhere but themselves.

Oh.

Even then … some of these ‘blameless assholes’ are really slick when it comes to accountability and personal responsibility. They vocalize responsibility … with caveats.

They take accountability for anything that has any appearance of clear cause & effect all the while including anything that doesn’t have clear cause & effect <but will make them look more successful/competent>.

They are cowards.

Here is my true fear on this accountability thing.

People are beginning to blame the organizational culture, or society, for their individual behavior. It reminds me of something Reagan said years ago <which seems relevant today>:

==

“We must reject the idea that every time a law’s broken, society is guilty rather than the lawbreaker. It is time to restore the American precept that each individual is accountable for his actions.”

Ronald Reagan

==

While I could rant and get myself all wound up on business organizational culture … I won’t. I will suggest this is about personal responsibility and personal choice.

If you do not dare to do what is right … well … then … it is cowardly behavior.

==

“Manliness consists not in bluff, bravado or loneliness.

It consists in daring to do the right thing and facing consequences whether it is in matters social, political or other.It consists in deeds not words.”

“Character is that which reveals moral purpose, exposing the class of things a man chooses or avoids.”

=

Aristotle

—

Ok. Let me be clear upfront – I believe 90+% of Personal Branding is bullshit. Despite the fact I am a relatively unhireable 50something my resume & credentials are pretty popular with executive search companies <I assume it is because they like to have some fairly robust experienced people on file to round out their library, but never really find them a job>.

I received one several weeks ago that made me laugh out loud. I laughed mostly because, as noted upfront, I think the whole ‘personal branding’ thing is a bunch of bullshit. I also couldn’t believe they would have a luncheon, with relatively senior people who you would assume already know their shit, to discuss ‘dare to build your personal brand.’

Personal branding has become a widely popular topic. People from all walks of life are taking the idea more seriously. What about you? Do you want to make the most of what you have to offer and become more of what you visualize yourself to be? Are you asking, “What’s the right strategy for me?” and “How do I go about putting a personal brand strategy to work that will bring me greater success?”

Dare To Be Your Own Brand demands that you get clear on what makes you unique and how you want to be viewed by others. Then you have to leverage it with an unwavering commitment in everything you do and be willing to step out of your comfort zone, focus on a clear path for personal brand elevation and stay the course.

–

Please come prepared to:

Introduce yourself within 60 seconds

Ask individuals/group for introductions to your targeted companies

Share information you have to offer others in their job search

Exchange business cards

——

Look. I fully understand that in today’s business world simply having some skill won’t save you. I imagine only having some “texture” will save you <what your skill is wrapped in>. If all you offer is competence, someone can get it for cheaper from somewhere. Byy texture I mean you will have to create some connection between the work you have actually done and, well, you. To be clear, this “you” isn’t about daring to create a personal brand. It is about figuring out what a great company called DDBNeedham calls ‘personal narrative’<or a ‘brand narrative>.

Now. Narrative sounds boring. And not edgy. Not true.

It is only boring if you build your personal narrative upon something you do not and cannot control because that has no texture.

That is simply surface information.

So. I say this having seen a shitload of companies that have rich narratives.

What do I mean? Think your typical great stories …“hero/conflict/resolution’ type outline with regard to their narratives. They can do this because companies have people, obstacles, trials, competition and situations in which someone wins or loses. This also means they talk about the character of the organization, about virtues and attributes and all the things necessary to navigate their narrative <and be heroic in some form or fashion>.

Oddly … I have seen a shitload of people who also have incredibly rich narratives … and yet they never share them in an interview or on a resume or anything to do with gaining a position. For some reason most people inevitably decide to not tell a story. They decide to not have a narrative instead they elect to create some ‘personal brand’ instead or they end up gussying up a resume with facts and figures and dates and titles and schools and accomplishments — everything but a narrative.

It seems weird to me that companies invest so much energy in a narrative and people don’t.

It seems weird to me that people don’t talk about personal journeys or character traits.

And it seems weird to me we choose to instead talking about ‘building a personal brand.’ And in building this personal brand (using tried & true branding acumen) we seek to come up with some ‘unique selling proposition’ <USP> for ourselves. This is great for ‘selling’ and selling ourselves.

But. We end up having no texture. We end up having no character. We end up having limited personality <only to the extent type font and layout permit it to happen>.

What’s up with that?

We know there are a lot of talented passionate people doing similar things as we do. Yet we seem to desire either tricks <personal brand> or fooling ourselves into believing our accomplishments are some remarkable unattainable-by-others type feats in order to try and stand out in an insanely crowded market with insanely good people.

This is crazy.

We actually end up sacrificing the one true thing that differentiates ourselves. Yes. Ourselves. Our character. Our narrative.

Look.

You are not a brand.

You are not a Facebook profile.

You are not a list of accomplishments.

You are not a list of job titles.

You are not a list of companies who deemed to hire you in the past.

You are not a list of companies that have deemed to fire you in the past.

You are a person. A person with a personal <and one would assume unique> narrative.

So skip the whole personal branding thing and focus on creating a narrative that makes you interesting.

By the way. The personal narrative you create is not some convoluted narrative that fries the brain wrangling with it … and not so simple it is … well … too simple. Hack away the unnecessary. Hack away the boring shit. Hack away the hyperbole.

Just create an interesting narrative. Simplistically this permits you two basic paths to choose from:

1. A niche. A specialty skill.

Someone with a special skill in a narrow niche will always beat the pompous boring generalists who are good at everything <a lot of things> but not particularly great at one thing. The more specific you can be the better it will be.

2. Style. Panache.

Stand out by style <but do not sacrifice substance in doing so>. Use your personality and create some distinctness through style. It’s tricky … but you want to have a distinctive style that people link to you … and, hopefully, want to hire you for.

By the way <part 1> whatever the style it has to push to some edge. People don’t share boring shit. They only talk about things distinct <which inevitably is something that resides on the edge>.

By the way <part 2> I consciously did not suggest ‘edgy.’ Edgy implies something disruptive … and while I personally like disruptive … it is not for everyone. Simply seek a distinct style. And clarity is always more achievable on some edge. But it does not have to be edgy.

Anyway.

The whole personal branding or ‘create your own brand’ drives me nuts. And it actually scares me a little that well regarded executive search companies actually hold seminars to those who you would deem worthy of a higher salary <therefore having some credible career experience> to ‘dare to be your own brand.’

Now. I completely understand why this personal brand shit has become so discussed. It can be depressing to think about solely being measured by the actual work you do.

What do I mean? Well.

Based on my experience here is how compensation works these days:

===

do shit work … receive no pay.

do good work … receive shit pay.

do excellent work … receive good pay.

do remarkable, insightful, make everyone sit up and pay attention type work … receive excellent pay.

===

Yes. I made this up.

Yes. It is also kind of reflects reality.

Well … this means we are constantly trying to make the case we did something remarkable <or are someone remarkable>. And what does that mean? I assume it means “dare to create your own personal brand!!!” and make sure while creating it … you create something remarkable.

Bullshit.

If you are an executive going to some executive search company seminar on ‘creating a brand’, you are screwed. The last thing you need to be thinking is personal brand, you should be wondering why you are going to something like that in the first place <trust me … you will see your ‘brand’ is the least of your issues>.

If you are an executive <or anyone worth a shit> you should aim high and be ridiculously persistent with your aspirations.

You should be following the same advice I actually give businesses.

Don’t be afraid to pursue revolutionary ideas and don’t hesitate simply there are ‘unbeatable’ competitors.’

“Once upon a time, there was a woman who discovered that she had turned into the wrong person.”

Anne Tyler

==

So.

Accountability is a surprisingly tough concept. Huh? Accountability is easy to grasp, even likable in concept, but incredibly difficult to implement.

Being accountable can be … well … gut wrenching on occasion.

And while I am tempted to write about this in a business environment … my stomach couldn’t take it today <accountability in today’s business world is stuck in the sludge at the bottom of the business moral barrel>. Instead I will talk about it within an everyday Life perspective. Personal in that while we face the day to day grind we sometimes miss out on the little accountability aspects of life that make us slip down the slope of ‘less than I wanted to be as a person.’

It happens in such small missed accountability increments that you get a little surprised when one day you look in the mirror and see you not only haven’t turned out to the be there person you meant to be, or wanted to be, you have actually turned into the wrong person. What a semi-miserable moment when you ask yourself … ‘are you pleased with what you see?’ … and the answer is … <sigh> … no. I say semi miserable because while pretty much anything you have done up to this point cannot be undone … you can certainly start doing what you want to do to begin the path to a ‘yes’ answer.

Ok. But let’s get back to the here & now and accountability.

Life doesn’t make accountability easy. Life demands constant relentless accountable moments. It is a constant day to day, moment to moment, challenge. You cannot relax for one moment.

Therefore. You have to constantly hold yourself accountable.

I know … I know … it doesn’t sound fair. You are kind of hoping Life would be more about putting yourself on the right path and assuming that if you keep putting one foot in front of the other you will just keep on down that path … and you can start looking at other things.

But you can’t. You have to constantly hold yourself accountable. I don’t have any ‘how to’ advice to offer mostly because I believe most of us know what accountability is and what it takes to be accountable.

I imagine I wrote about this because when I saw the quote I used to open this post it made me think about the constant attention accountability demands. It is the constant aggressive nature of Life itself in seeking the little moments you are not focusing on accountability … and making you pay for them. And the fact that accountability is tricky because it is not just your actions for which you may have to pay the consequences for … but also your inaction.

Yup. You are also accountable for the things you don’t do.

Accountability is really all about assuming responsibility.

Responsibility for not only being in the right place at the right time and doing the right things … but responsibility for when you are in the wrong place at the wrong time and do the wrong thing … as well as responsibility for not being ‘in place’ at all.

Shit. Accountability is tough. It is a harsh judge & jury.

All that said.

Why does this matter?

Why did I even write this post?

“… who discovered that she had turned into the wrong person.”

Turning into the wrong person is the price to be paid for not constantly holding yourself accountable.

Knowledge of Botany: Variable. Well up in belladonna, opium, and poisons generally. Knows nothing of practical gardening.

Knowledge of Geology: Practical but limited. Tells at a glance different soils from each other. After walks has shown me splashes upon his trousers, and told me by their colour and consistence in what part of London he had received them.

Knowledge of Chemistry: Profound.

Knowledge of Anatomy: Accurate but unsystematic.

Knowledge of Sensational Literature: Immense. He appears to know every detail of every horror perpetrated in the century.

Plays the violin well.

Is an expert singlestick player, boxer, and swordsman.

Has a good practical knowledge of British law.”

―

Arthur Conan Doyle <A Study in Scarlet>

==================

So.

I am not sure if it is that I am of an age where my experiences have become varied enough that I chafe on being slotted in some form of ‘what you do’ or if I am of an age where many of the people I know get frustrated that they are demanded to define themselves, careerwise, in some simplistic way.

All that said.

I found myself in an odd alternative universe writing a core “here is why I have created this site and initiative” for someone I respect … and it was written for him but easily expressed my own situation.

After I sent him what I had scribbled I went back and I replaced his field with mine and … well … I found I was writing about my frustrations were which his … as well as a number of people I know:

====================

This site is borne of my frustration with explaining I am more than an advertising guy.

This site is borne of a belief that there is a community of advertising guys/gals who not only know they are more than advertising people but they also know they would like to use the skills they have in a business world which they see as needing what they have to offer.

This site is borne of what I know to be true – many of us are not simply advertising people, we are tinkers, tailors, soldiers & spies … all in one.

For some of us it gets frustrating to explain just because I have my MBA and am an experienced advertising guy that I am more than just that.

I get frustrated when my degree defines me.

I get frustrated when my industry experience label defines what my skills are.

I get frustrated that what I do, or have tangibly done, defines what I am capable of.

I get frustrated because I know how to ask the hard questions which often offer the hardest answers – the right things to do <which I believe businesses are desperate for this skill>.

I get frustrated because I know that “the truth is” is rarely the truth and I know that truths are often misty and multiple, like ghosts.

I get frustrated because I know all that I just wrote is a reflection of a thinking skill, a problem solving skill, a business skill and not just an advertising skill.

I get frustrated because I am more than an advertising guy and I know many people are frustrated by being slotted so simplistically.

To me, the world is too quick to define people and their skills in a simplistic way — simplistically by what they do <on the surface> and what specific skills they have acquired. People are often more complex than the labels they carry along with them and skills are often more translatable, with surprisingly positive outcomes, than many people are willing to think about.

It is our own fault because we have bludgeoned it into everyone’s head that everyone has to be a specialist or have some specific skill and, therefore, if you cannot simply define your specialty or skill you are … well … of less worth than someone who can.

That is, frankly, silly if not ludicrous.

Here is what I know.

I am more than an advertising guy. I am a tinker, tailor soldier and spy.

And I am building a community of likeminded people with a desire to go beyond simply being defined by the degree they earned and what labels people put on them to reach out into a business world, which may not know they need our skills at the moment, and show them there is a group of overlooked people who have skills to offer which businesses can benefit from.

============

tin·ker

ˈtiNGkər/

noun: tinker; plural noun: tinkers

1.

(especially in former times) a person who travels from place to place mending metal utensils as a way of making a living.

a person who makes minor mechanical repairs, especially on a variety of appliances and apparatuses, usually for a living.

2.

an act of attempting to repair something.

tai·lor

ˈtālər/

noun: tailor; plural noun: tailors

1.

a person whose occupation is making fitted clothes such as suits, pants, and jackets to fit individual customers.

Soldier

Noun

A soldier is one who fights as part of an organised, land based, sea based and air based armed force.

spy

spī/

noun: spy; plural noun: spies

1.

a person who secretly collects and reports information on the activities, movements, and plans of an enemy or competitor.

=============

Sigh.

I am fairly sure I am not in the majority in that the bulk of the world tends to acquire specific skills but I do believe the majority of generalists get unfairly squeezed into some incredibly uncomfortable boxes simply because the world just doesn’t seem to believe a generalist has the same value as a specialist.

It is frustrating.

To be clear … a qualified generalist doesn’t claim to be able to do everything.

I am not qualified to be a CFO <although I understand what CFOs do and what they say>.

I am not qualified to be some social media strategist <although I understand what they do and what they say>.

I am not qualified to … well … you get the point.

But from a generalist perspective I am qualified to talk about effective marketing, advertising and communications in any industry <even if I have never worked specifically in that industry>.

But from a generalist perspective I am qualified to talk about effective company vision, objectives, strategies and how to grow sales & retention in any industry <even if I have never worked specifically in that industry>.

But from a generalist perspective I am qualified to talk about positioning products & services, behavioral economics, the emotional & functional reasons people do things as well as using those things in making the hard business decisions which guide businesses toward success in any industry <even if I have never worked specifically in that industry>.

But from a generalist perspective I am qualified to dabble in almost any topic in any industry on any issue and use that ‘dabbling’ to make some relevant points based on some seemingly disparate type knowledge.

===============

“You know about fixing cars, you’re athletic, and you know when to shut up.”

sometimes quality people follow me and i actually cry and whisper “i’m so sorry you’re going to regret this”

—-

(Source: danny-castellano)

===============

So.

The quote I open with made me think about leading in business … specifically about me as a leader and what I think about those who I was fortunate enough to lead.

If you go online you can find a million articles about what makes a great leader … heck … on how to be a good leader.

That said. In general … if you have to go online to learn how to lead and be a leader … well … you are not a leader.

Look.

I loved leading. I loved being the captain of a team. I loved being the pilot of a ship <pick your trite metaphor here>. But I never assumed that simply because I had a title or was selected to lead that everyone would want to actually follow. This gets trickier once you arrive at some high falutin’ title and responsibility where you cannot hand pick everyone on your team. But maybe it is prior to that high falutin’ position where you earn the most valuable lesson.

Lesson?

I think any leader worth half a shit is humbled by the quality of people who choose to follow.

I think any leader worth half a shit is worried those people will regret that decision at some point.

Yeah. Leading has another side to it … those who elect to follow you. And that is where one of the most important lesson resides. People actually choose to follow you. That said.

I can only comment on this topic from my own perspective.

I do know for sure that it doesn’t matter what type of leader you are <1> if no one follows you will get nowhere fast, and <2> if the wrong people are following you … you will get nowhere fast.

I will admit.

One of the hardest things in the world in business to do is to find people with the same intentions that you have. This becomes important because at some point leading demands motivating in some form or fashion. Me? I don’t think I was ever particularly good at motivating individuals one at a time. The good news with having that weakness is that leading that way is incredibly time intensive so I never did it.

I learned to simply focus on my message. Maybe more importantly … I focused on an ‘attitude’ more than any specific ‘desired behavior.’ I kind of figured that, if I could encourage a certain type of attitude, the behavior would follow. A lot of leaders hated that belief … and still do. They prefer established certain types of behavior and model their leadership within that construct. I did not and it permitted those who chose to follow me to follow a variety of paths … walk in their own shoes … and, yet, still walk within the same attitude construct with the same intentions that I had.

As a result I have worked for and with amazing companies, products & services and people.

I don’t think I did it through any ‘big personality’ <I have seen and met charismatic leaders and I ain’t one> but I always seem to have ‘my community of followers’ who were incredibly loyal to me … and I remained incredibly loyal to them.

Somehow this all permitted me to leverage the naturally scant resources any leader has <time, energy, money, attention> to not only have an effective team & organization but also attract others to come by and join this merry & mad group of followers. Through it all I always looked to create some convergence of my own conviction with the wants & needs of the individuals … and this included even the individuals who I were fairly sure were quite hesitant to follow my lead <and, yes, they exist with any leader>.

I will also admit that I never really thought much about purposefully sharing any real substantive value to the people who elected to follow nor did I attempt to purposefully share any substantive value to people I wanted to have join this merry band. Huh? <say what?>. I never thought about trying to create some compelling message or try and be compelling … I solely focused on my convictions, my attitude & beliefs and … well … I imagine I thought of it as “I have a campfire, come sit down … and I hope you stay <if you want>” and hoped like hell that someone actually wanted to follow that conviction, attitude & set of beliefs <and I never assumed anyone did and was pleasantly surprised when someone did>.

And.

Well.

I was always humbled if someone decided to stay and warm their hands on the campfire.

I never studied on how to be a leader. I never read any books on leadership.

My only mantra was “would I want to follow me” and maintain the behavior and attitudes which would seem like they would make me feel like I was treated with dignity, respect and value <and be my version of interesting & meaningful>.

It may sound odd … but … I figured if I could please me then … heck … some other people would at least be semi-pleased <because I always felt like I was hard to please>.

I certainly wanted to be dynamic beyond my own purpose <and still do> and kind of built that into how I wanted to be as a leader. I am not sure this was representing some grand vision or ‘manifesto’ or even some ‘purpose-driven’ type flag for everyone to follow … but it was more than some personal goals and raises and basic desires of ‘coming into work every day and doing what you need to do.’

I never did anything calculated in my leadership. It almost always resided in attitude.

And I think it allowed me to be me and to let those who decided to follow to emerge in their own way beyond simply daily desires to get shit done.

===

“Become the kind of leader that people would follow voluntarily, even if you had no title or position.

Conduct a personal assessment and ask yourself, ”Would I follow me?”

–

Brian Tracy

====

I absolutely buy the fact that a leader has to give people something they want or need. I don’t care if it is ideas or purpose or productivity <outcomes>. I just don’t buy the fact you can purposefully sit down and create it.

Sure. You can hone what you know you should be doing but you cannot learn what you should be doing. I am also not sure you can always purposefully create the challenges which create interest as well as establish some north star meaningful purpose … which we all know is what someone who elects to follow thrives on.

I always felt like if you created the right attitude your job as a leader was more of a herder than a creator or a motivator. And I always felt like ‘passion’ was overrated <albeit many people commented that they saw moments of passion from me … personally … I thought it was simply moments that I focused on something>.

I absolutely understand that passion is contagious but I always worried that passion can easily fade. I always felt like I owed people who elected to follow more than passion.

When your employees sense that you have a deeper conviction, not passion, for what you do I always believed they got the sense that what they’re doing is a little more worthwhile. It was not that everyone felt like they were on some path towards something bigger but rather they were permitted some moments in which maybe they could not only be better versions of themselves but also maybe, just possibly with a little luck & fate, be part of something greater than ‘oneself’.

I don’t think I was, or am, a particularly humble individual … but I certainly was always humbled that someone, even one person, chose to follow my lead.

And I know I read somewhere that being humble in business doesn’t equate to not taking credit for your work or ideas but rather taking responsibility for your mistakes as well as the mistakes of your team … and acknowledging when someone following you can do something better than you.

Well.

With that definition I guess I could attach ‘humble’ to me but it does not wear well. I think it is just responsible leadership and it doesn’t need any label.

Leadership is certainly not for the faint of heart. Responsibility is always a burden … and if you are responsible for people the burden increases … and … if you are responsible for people who have actually CHOSEN to follow you … well … the burden increases exponentially. But that ‘not for the faint of heart’ is not really courage … it’s more about some fashion of fearlessness. I am pretty sure I wasn’t a particularly great leader. But what I did do is breed a sense of fearlessness in those who followed me.

In the end.

I can really only say one thing.

If you want to lead … you do what you do … you have some strong conviction and attitude <beyond ‘perfection’> … and if people follow they follow. I imagine at some point I said … well … fuck it. I am going to live the way I want to live Life … live business the way I want to live business … and if that mean I am leading? Great.

If it means some people follow? Great.

If it means some people think I am full of shit ? Not so great … but I will live with it.

If it means some people will run away from where I am going? Also not so great … but as long as they don’t think I am fucking nuts … I can live with it.

I did everything in my power, every minute of everyday to insure anyone who elected to follow me never regretted that decision. And I never regretted that choice nor the responsibility that came along with it.

But what I really learned, and know, is that having followers who have chosen to follow you, while humbling, is the best & greatest burden you can have.

Why?

Because one of the hardest things in the world to do is to find people with the same intentions that you have. And when you do? Whew. That is the reason you lead. It is maybe the best part of leadership.

“We cannot cram the embryonic world of tomorrow into yesterday’s conventional cubbyholes.

Nor are the orthodox attitudes or moods appropriate.”

–

Alvin Toffler

=============

Finnish educator Sahlberg shrugs.

“There’s no word for accountability in Finnish.

Accountability is something that is left when responsibility has been subtracted.”

=========================

“Real winners do not compete.”

Samuli Paronen

====================

So.

We talk about accountability a lot these days. And for some odd reason it always seems to get tied to ‘responsibility’ in that it shows proof you have been responsible.

For some reason, even though I do like some accountability measurements, I have always struggled with quantifying responsibility.

I do believe Life demands you to be accountable for a variety of things and I do believe Life demands constant relentless accountable moments … but responsibility, to me, is either something you assume as a duty or … well … responsibility <assuming I can ever have responsibility for responsibility>.

But beyond my belief the rest of America wields accountability like club.

It is the watchword of today’s culture. It almost seems like society believes if we have enough accountability measurements in place we can actually force accountability.

This seems ass backwards to me.

It seems to me that we would be much better off teaching responsibility and then accountability almost becomes unnecessary.

Well. that may be one of the most un-American thoughts I have ever shared.

Which made me think about how we got to this absurd place with regard to accountability because, honestly, my sense is that we Americans haven’t always been this way.

And I also thought that there had to be some root foundational attitude that was driving it.

That said.

Here are some thoughts.

America has always had an uneasy relationship with competition and winning. Swinging back & forth between winning is everything to everyone wins.

In my opinion this is all grounded in America’s ethos of “doing.”

From day one the pilgrims and Indians were aligned with doing. Some people called it survival but survival can take on a variety of forms and ours was an adventuresome version of grabbing the bull by the horns and just doing shit.

Initially this came to fruition in the form of agriculture.

There was no competition. There was no winning. There was simply everyone doing. That didn’t mean there were contests of skills but those skills being measured for winners and losers were not based on productivity but rather … well … a skill.

<jumping several decades>

And then we crashed into the industrial revolution where doing was measured by output. Winning and success became more competitively quantifiable.

<jumping several decades>

And then we decided that if measurement was good in manufacturing … what the hell … everyone and everything should be measured. We assumed people were responsibe but measured with an intent to … well … compare & contrast winners and losers of responsible people.

<jumping several decades>

And then we ran into the really uncomfortable thought <which the founding pilgrims most likely would have been horrified by> that we … uhm … shouldn’t assume everyone would be responsible so we created an entire industry of “accountability & measurement.” <note: I could argue this was the beginning of the general unraveling of trust and ‘fairness’>.

<jumping several decades>

This all then got even more complicated <and exacerbated the situation> when we created “non making shit industries” or entire industries based on servicing people who had money to be serviced as well as entire industries based on managing money <or making $’s off of $’s … not shit that is actually made>.

Therefore, not having any tangible shit to assess doing we crafted a tangled web of ‘accountability’ measures to … well … measure the intangible winners and losers <and then even compared the value of a tangible doer against an intangible doer>.

Suffice it to say that while you could haggle over some of my decades everything is grounded in doing and attempting to measure, or create winners & losers, the ‘doing population.’

But I imagine my main point is that the origins of doing were inextricably tied to responsibility.

Everyone assumed equal responsibility therefore the doing need not be measured and the doers need not be measured.

I am sure something like accountability was in the backs of some of the leaders minds but the overall sense was responsibility equality need not have milestones or objectives or even ‘mid project assessments.’ The leader viewed what was happening and nudged the underlying sense of responsibility.

Somewhere along the way the output and outcomes and competition measurement began to outweigh teaching ‘principled & responsible behavior.’

We turned the equation around backwards and … well … shoved accountability up everyone’s ass.

It seems to me in my pea like brain that we have things out of whack.

And I will not suggest America be anything but American.

We like to just do shit.

And we do like winners & losers.

But it seems to me that we also like fair competition and we truly like beating the best. And if that is true then we should seek to apply accountability to fairness.

As in if you want to preserve American competitiveness the country has to prepare not just some of its population well, but all of its population well.

This benefits society, benefits all players in the game <the best have to up their game because even the non best get better> and it benefits America’s competitive place globally.

No one should be left behind. All should be able to compete at their best.

You can still have winners & losers.

And I imagine you can still compete if you want.

But I could argue, and would argue, that if you did this then all the wacky accountability crap we weave into business & life would be diminished significantly.

We could focus less on accountability and more on just doing shit.

Toffler did not say the following with regard to what I just offered but the words resonate:

“These changes are cumulative that they add up to a giant transformation in the way we live, work, play, and think, and that a sane and desirable future is possible.

In short, what follows begins with the premise that what is happening now is nothing less than a global revolution, a quantum jump in history.”

<Alvin Toffler: The Third Wave>

Americans are consistently obsessed with tracking, testing, improvement measurement and fostering competition. We obsess over these things as if we can build a matrix of certain buttons we can push to actually foster this behavior.

By the way … none of those things foster independence, independent thinking or individual responsibility. All they do is foster pain avoidance or reward pleasure.

Shock me enough times and I will start doing even the most abhorrent behaviors just to avoid the shock.

It seems to me we would be better off as a country and society of we actually encouraged people to just do shit the right way because … well … it feel good to do it right and do it to the best of their abilities <EVEN if their best is not THE best>.

I know a lot of this sounds absolutely whack to many Americans.

Aspects of what I am sharing is so far out of our DNA I imagine some people are just laughing.

But I don’t want to change our DNA. I just want to activate the DNA that made us who and what we are.

The first settlers didn’t need accountability.

And for many years we didn’t need extreme accountability measurements and tests.

Our DNA was ‘just do it’ and a responsibility to just ‘do shit.’

We don’t talk about this issue often except maybe some of the education reform people. But I believe more of us should be talking about this beyond education … for business, for athletics, for … well … everything.

Here is one thing I know for sure.

We need to think about some changes in how we do things. And we should be thinking about ALL things … even the things we currently find “essential to the way we do things.”

Many people will disagree with me but, in my mind, accountability is one.

Just think about it. Think about what I wrote. It just seems like we have arrived at our current state of ‘how we view accountability’ through a variety of smaller type decisions and have inevitably fostered the creation of a Frankenstein.

But. That’s me.

Which permits me to close with one last Toffler thought:

Two apparently contrasting images of the future grip the popular imagination today. Most people to the extent that they bother to think about the future at all … assume the world they know will last indefinitely. They find it difficult to imagine a truly different way of life for themselves, let alone a totally new civilization. Of course they recognize that things are changing. But they assume today’s changes will somehow pass them by and that nothing will shake the familiar economic framework and political structure. They confidently expect the future to continue the present.

This straight-line thinking comes in various packages. At one level it appears as an unexamined assumption lying behind the decisions of businessmen, teachers, parents, and politicians. At a more sophisticated level it comes dressed up hi statistics, computerized data, and forecasters jargon.

Either way it adds up to a vision of a future world that is essentially “more of the same.”

A note about listicles: So we know a lot of people hate listicles and associate them with cheap, low-quality, traffic-driving, link-bait articles. But here’s the thing—a list is a great format for an article, and a format I was using on my old blog almost 10 years ago. In fact, my first listicle, 19 Things I Don’t Understand, was published in August of 2005, a year before Buzzfeed was even founded.

Then, over the last few years, I watched in horror as one of my favorite formats decided to prostitute itself all over the internet as the default format for lazy articles.

Anyway the point is, A) I was doing listicles before they were cool, and B) A list headline doesn’t mean it can’t be a high-quality article, so C) Wait But Why will make a listicle when it’s the best format for that post, and don’t be mad at us cause it’s not what it looks like.

This I a rant on listicles <all those articles you find online using simplistic lists to share what I will loosely call ‘knowledge’>.

I decided to write about listicles because I just had maybe my 100th meeting where someone at the table leaned forward and said with an expert tone “young people don’t read long articles and we need to offer lists to engage them.”

My head explodes over this simplistic drivel.

Listicles certainly have a role but creating a list for the sake of having a list is bullshit. Creating a list because you are too lazy to learn to write an article or a thought piece is bullshit.

Write your content.

If it is better delivered in a list than deliver it that way. On the other hand … if your content is better delivered as a story, with chapters and a moral <or dénouement and climax> then … for gods sake … deliver it that way.

The whole idea that young people do not read longer content is ludicrous.

They sit for 3 hour movies <Hunger Games>, they sit for 5 hours of Wii, they sit for 2 hours of texting … suffice it to say they will sit for as long as they are engaged an interested.

Next.

I could argue <and I will> that lists have attained the status of meaningless useless shit articles on social media channels. This is because some social media expert assholes <a lot of them in fact> have been simplistically recommending everything you should do online should be in a list format. Somehow they have convinced everyone that this is the format to deliver all content.

That is just fucking crazy.

Imagine if every movie director and every book author followed the same rule of delivering their content <okay … don’t … it would be the hell of monotony>.
Look.

I don’t argue that a list can be an effective way to deliver content and I am not opposed to offering up my content in a listicle format <although I will admit my contrarian attitude makes me slightly nauseated when I do so> but … well … think about what I just wrote.

I don’t decide to create a listicle I decide to create engaging content and then decide the best way to engage a reader to that content.

And you know what? This strategy is effective regardless of what age group you are targeting.

Interesting is interesting.

Engaging is engaging.

And attention spans will consistently expand or contract depending on what is interesting and engaging <as they have since the dawn of time>.

So please, please, stop with the listicle advice. It is misguided <I patted myself on the back for holding back on calling it bullshit advice … which was my knee jerk thought>.

The False Narrative of Writing On line Content

Write good content.

The format you deliver it can help, or hurt it, in terms of engagement but ultimately the format cannot save bad content and good content can be delivered in a variety of formats and be effective.

And as a quasi-writer myself … I would like to think good content will be read regardless of the format. That said … I will write in a listicle format kicking & screaming. And maybe with that attitude I will be inspired to write such engaging content that i don’t need a frickin’ listicle.